


there's a light on

by theLiterator



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Assassin!Damian, Families of Choice, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-04
Updated: 2015-05-04
Packaged: 2018-03-28 23:11:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3873400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theLiterator/pseuds/theLiterator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU where Nightwing is living out his life in Chicago, and Damian al Ghul never became Robin.</p><p>Written for a prompt on tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	there's a light on

Dick's known about the kid for awhile, actually; not through Bruce, who is less forthcoming with the personal information than anyone would even suspect, but because he's tracked Batman tracking him three times now.

It's _weird_ , is the thing; Batman will get on the trail of someone taking out a series of targets, and then drop it like there aren't a bunch of hired murders going on in territory he's in, so Dick followed the assassin himself once, ready to take him out himself since Bruce won't.

Batman stopped him, that time, stopped him from dropping out of nowhere, and held Nightwing, pinned, while the child (and he was a child, barely old enough to drive, Dick thought, looking at the shape of his shoulders and the stern lines of his back) slit the throat of an investment banker.

Dick had stared at Bruce, because there wasn't a lot that would make him forgive, even ignore, murder, and yet here he was.

So now it was Dick who was tracking the boy by the line of bodies in his wake, in Chicago, in the freezing rain, except, it seems, he's been spotted, because a figure all in black materializes next to him on a rooftop and smiles, teeth flashing white for a second like lightning without thunder.

"Did Father send you?" he asks, hands easy, not defensive yet, though there is tension in every breath he takes.

Dick _knows_ in that moment, and the knowledge knocks him hard in the chest, and he spends long seconds trying to make sense of things, to make sense of Bruce and of Bruce's son before him, before dismissing it all and resolving not to reach any conclusions without talking to Tim first, because Tim probably already knew.

"No," Dick replies, the word an automatic response that he feels distantly. "Chicago is my beat, not his."

The figure in black tilts its head, birdlike, and then he says, "Are you here to stop me then?"

Dick doesn't really know, and in the time it takes him to consider that too, on top of the other revelation, thunder strikes and the figure in black is gone.

***

"Tim, Tim, Timmy," Dick said to the phone he'd set up on his dresser as he pulled on a sweatshirt over the tshirt and boxers he'd changed into after patrol.

"Do you have _any_ idea what time it is?" Tim replied groggily. "It is just after sunrise. I am sleeping. Call me back later."

"Did you know Bruce had a kid?" Dick asked, ignoring Tim's protests, because he might be treating it playfully, but if he's wrong and Tim _doesn't_ know, he needs to.

Tim sucked in a breath that was audible even over the speakerphone. "Bruce has a lot of kids, Dick. Like, four, by my last count."

"Really?" Dick said, running fingers through his damp hair to smooth out the tangles. "Not five?"

"He finally told you, then," Tim said. "Thank God. I need a voice of reason on this one, and Cassandra will only say things like, 'he is who he is, not who he would be.' which while profound, is not helpful."

"Wait, Cassie knows about him too?" Dick demanded. "Who else? Stephanie? _Jason_?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Dick. She figured it out on her own, same as I did, and no one's telling Jason anything, except--"

There was a brief moment while Tim had a muffled conversation with someone else, and Dick tried to picture who it might be. Someone Tim trusted, that was allowed in the room while they were having a phone conversation, so, Kon, maybe? Probably Kon. Or Cassandra.

"Except what?" Dick asked, after a moment.

"Jason knows," Cassandra said in that quiet, fatalistic way of hers.

"How?"

"Cassandra has this crazy theory that the kid is how Jason came back. But I don't know, I don't see it. You remember how Jason was at first; he didn't trust anyone except--"

"Bruce," Dick said. "Have any of us seen the kid? If he's actually Bruce's, Jason might have recognized him by his features and trusted him because of that, or something. Jason's pretty smart, even when he's having an episode, after all."

Dick waited the beat it took for that to sink in, then cut across Tim's stuttering protest.

"I just want to know what's up. I know he kills, I've seen him kill. But is he friendly or just indifferent."

Another beat, longer and more considered. "Friendly," Tim said. "He tried to kill me once, but he saved my ass a different time, so I think the first time was a contract kill, because he backed the fuck off once he realized it was me."

"Okay," Dick said.

"If you could get a clear picture of his face, that would be super helpful," Tim added. "I've got a reconstruction based on some partial profiles, but..."

"Right-o, little brother. I'm going to grab something to eat and then crash. If you need anything, either of you, you call, got it?"

He waited for the muttered replies and the line to go dead with static before he locked his phone and tucked it in its charging dock, then he ventured into the living room.

His roommates were getting up, pouring coffee and eating toast with hastily scrambled eggs off the stovetop.

Dick went straight for the cold cereal and yawned around his 'good morning', not noticing when there was a knock at the door.

"I am sorry," a lightly accented voice penetrated his sleepy, cereal-eating haze. "I must have the wrong address. Forgive the intrusion."

"Uh, no? Get inside. I'm not letting you bleed to death trying to find the right apartment. You can borrow a phone while we wait for an ambulance."

Dick was on his feet before he really registered what he was doing, and then he was in the doorway, and there was a young man dressed all in black, blood smeared on his cheek and a dark, wet stain spreading on his clothes.

"Get inside," Dick said, not waiting for him to reply before he bent to scoop him up and carry him into the apartment. Michael and Joey both gave him _looks_ , but neither of them questioned it when Dick dumped him on to the couch and started stripping him.

"You know, you're really making me regret not stopping you last night," Dick said. Michael shut the door and locked the deadbolt, and Joey went into the bathroom, presumably to get the first aid kit.

"You couldn't," the young man said, and Dick whistled low and long at the sight of the wound.

"What the hell did you get stabbed with?"

"I was shot, you moron," the young man replied.

"Did you _rip_ an arrow out of your chest? And you're calling me a moron?"

"I knew I should not have come here, Grayson. Let me go."

"Not on your life," Dick said through gritted teeth, just as Joey appeared with their probably suspiciously well-stocked first aid kit.

"You know him?"

"Not well," Dick said. "For instance, we have never been introduced," he said. "One of your targets fought back?"

"No," the young man said. "The League. I knew they would not look for me here, because they do not know that we are aware of one another."

"Yeah," Dick said. "Plus even if they did, though couldn't touch me; the place is a panic room inside of a bunker."

The young man smiled a pretty, perfect smile that reached his familiar light eyes and made them glitter appealingly. "I have never properly introduced myself to you, Richard Grayson. I am Damian al Ghul, grandson of Ra's al Ghul and Heir to the Demon."

"Because of course you are," Dick said, using a gauze and iodine to clean the mess of a wound on Damian's shoulder. "Your daddy never did do anything by halves."

Damian never did flinch or make a sound during the entire ordeal of Dick stitching him neatly closed, and as soon as he finished, Damian sat up and reached for his clothes.

"Uh-uh," Dick said. "No way. Sleep, then fleeing."

"I have to go; they're after me," Damian said. "And I can't-- Your civilians will be in danger, and that's the rule, the only rule."

"Rule?" Dick echoed, even as Joey bristled at being called a civilian and Michael snorted from the kitchen. Neither of them appeared to be ready to actually go to work.

"Father won't touch me if I don't touch any of you. After Drake got in my way, he drove me to ground for _weeks_ , and that wasn't even deliberate, not like this."

"B doesn't make decisions like that for me _or_ for my city," Dick said calmly. "I can handle myself and the League, and as you've pointed out, you and I aren't supposed to be in contact. They won't look very hard, if they look here at all.

Damian shivered, probably from the blood loss, and glared at Dick. "Are you going to arrest me, then?"

"What?" Dick demanded. "No. And before you suggest it, I'm not calling B either. We are going to both get some sleep, and then you are going to tell me what the hell is going on, and then you and I are going to figure this out, just the two of us."

"And me," Joey said. "I'm sure you'll have a thin excuse and a bribe to get me to hack things."

"I'll keep an ear out. No thin phony story required," Michael added. "I assume _not_ the Justice League?"

"The League of Assassins," Damian said, sounding self-important and pompous, if one wasn't listening for the signs of strain and fatigue.

Dick shrugged out of his sweatshirt and tugged it over Damian's head. Damian made a funny little scoffing noise and scowled furiously at him, but the effect was ruined by the mussed hair and the exhaustion in his eyes.

"Come on," Dick said gently. "If you can't trust one of us to watch your back, then you've basically missed the entire point of B's rule about not touching any of us."

"The point was made fairly obvious at the time," Damian said, but he leaned lightly against Dick and let Dick steer them toward his bedroom.

"Yeah?" Dick couldn't resist asking.

"Father chooses his family, and I will never be chosen."

Dick tensed at that, and the arm he'd draped loosely around Damian's shoulders to guide him went tight for a breath. "Yeah, that's not actually how it works," he said after a second.

Joey and Michael were conspicuously silent in the kitchen.

"We choose each other," Dick said, and then he couldn't resist squeezing the back of Damian's neck and shaking him a little. "B doesn't even have veto power anymore, okay."

Damian reached back to grab Dick's wrist, quick as lightning, but he didn't pry it off, he just wrapped his fingers tightly around it and held on.

"You'll change your mind," Damian said confidently. "You'll see."

"This is my room," Dick said, ignoring Damian's fatalism since acknowledging it seemed like it would only feed the craziness, and Dick was tired.

"You only have one bed," Damian said, and Dick stared at the furniture like he'd never seen it before.

"Yes? I am pretty sure that's normal."

"I should leave."

Dick snorted and squeezed the back of Damian's neck again, "No way, little D," he said. "You and I are getting some beauty rest, and then we will discuss strategy."

Damian slanted him a skeptical look from under his eyelashes, and Dick sighed.

"If you can't trust me, you're screwed anyway, aren't you?"

At the slight nod of acknowledgement that got him, Dick let go of Damian and crawled into his bed, lifting the covers next to him. "Well, then you might as well climb in."

Damian sighed, shook himself out as if preparing for a fight, and then stripped out of his pants, leaving nothing but the sweatshirt on.

Dick couldn't help but watch each sleek, graceful movement with assessing eyes, and when Damian met his gaze again, catching him staring, he laughed a little, shrugging it off, and patted the empty place in the bed next to him. Damian climbed in, and when Dick rolled over, putting his back to Damian, he murmured, "I thought--" and Dick cut him off with an "I'm tired" instead of a 'Not ever' because he was only human, and was rewarded with a strong, muscular body curling up behind him, chest to back, and the warmth of Damian's breath on his neck.

Dick laced his fingers with Damian's hand when it came to settle on his hip, and drifted to sleep.


End file.
